Muslims fear congressional hearings will demonize them

Sunday

Jan 30, 2011 at 12:01 AMJan 30, 2011 at 11:07 AM

But for those who gathered at the Long Island mosque, the coming hearings represented not just a political issue, but a personal one. For the man organizing the hearings was the very lawmaker who was supposed to represent them in Washington: Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y. Long before he had become their enemy, he had been one of their community's closest friends.

WESTBURY, N.Y. - They called it a summit to teach Muslims how to fight prejudice and fear. But all day long, fear was inescapable in the fluorescent-lit meeting hall of the Long Island mosque.

The top issue on everyone's mind this month at the Islamic Center of Long Island was this: What could be done to stop planned congressional hearings on alleged hidden radicalism among American Muslims and mosques?

The House hearings, scheduled to begin next month, have touched off a wave of panic throughout the U.S. Muslim community, which has spent much of the past year battling what it sees as a rising tide of Islamophobia. Conference calls, strategy sessions and letter-writing campaigns have been launched.

But for those who gathered at the Long Island mosque, the coming hearings represented not just a political issue, but a personal one. For the man organizing the hearings was the very lawmaker who was supposed to represent them in Washington: Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y. Long before he had become their enemy, he had been one of their community's closest friends.

"He used to come to our weddings. He ate dinner in our homes," said the mosque's chairman, Habeeb Ahmed, a short medical technologist with graying hair sitting near the front. "Everything just changed suddenly after 9/11, and now he's holding hearings to say that people like us are radical extremists. I don't understand it."

At the meeting that day, Ahmed, a 55-year-old immigrant from India, was surrounded by more than a hundred Muslim leaders.

There were Sunnis and Shiites. There were doctors, engineers and pharmacists who had left Pakistan, Indonesia and Bangladesh to remake their lives in the United States. There were African-Americans who had embraced Islam decades ago and new converts who were learning what it meant to be Muslim in America.

Some had flown in from as far away as Chicago. But most were regulars at the local Islamic center, including Ghazi Khankan, who had been one of its earliest members and had defended it for years against King's scorn.

"We have nothing to hide," Khankan said. "No matter what King says, others know that we are a peaceful community."

Although no member of the Islamic Center has ever been accused of terrorism, King has singled out the mosque as a hotbed of "radical Islam" and called its leaders extremists who should be put under surveillance. He maintains that most Muslim leaders in the United States aren't cooperating with authorities, even as arrests of homegrown terrorists are rising.

Now, as the new chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, King said he is finally in a position to do something about it.

"My first goal is just to have people even acknowledge this as a real issue," King said. "This politically correct nonsense has kept us from debating and discussing what is one of this country's most vital issues. We are under siege by Muslim terrorists."

The Islamic Center of Long Island sits just beyond the boundaries of New York's 3rd District. It is an imposing green-domed building nestled amid suburban split-levels and cul-de-sacs.

Muslims were once a rarity here, but a wave of immigration in the 1980s changed that. Today, 70,000 Muslims are estimated to live on Long Island, worshipping at about 22 mosques.

With 400 members, the Islamic Center is one of the largest and most prominent of the mosques. It took the lead in hosting the recent all-day summit for Muslim leaders, at which the discussion often devolved into anguished debate over how to deal with King.

The concern has plagued the Westbury mosque for nine years. But it was not always so.

During King's earliest days as a congressman, he gave speeches at the Islamic Center and held book signings in the prayer hall. He took in Muslim interns and was one of the few Republicans who supported U.S. intervention in the 1990s to help Muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo.

In return, the Westbury mosque presented him with an award for his work in the Balkans. Many of its leaders regularly contributed to his campaigns, often paying $500 a person to attend his fundraisers.

King was even the guest of honor on the day of greatest pride for the community: the 1993 opening of its long-awaited $3 million prayer hall, which many proudly note was built completely with locally raised funds.

Then came Sept. 11, 2001.

In the weeks after the twin towers crumbled and the Pentagon burned, local reporters swarmed Long Island's mosques looking for reaction. On Oct. 18, Khankan and another Westbury mosque leader were quoted in the local paper, repeating conspiracy theories that it wasn't Muslims who had orchestrated the attacks.

"Who really benefits from such a horrible tragedy that is blamed on Muslims and Arabs?" asked Khankan, the mosque's interfaith director at the time. "Definitely Muslims and Arabs do not benefit. It must be the enemy of Muslims and Arabs. An independent investigation must take place."

Safdar Chadda, a dentist from Pakistan who was then co-president of the mosque, speculated that "the Israeli government would benefit from this tragedy by now branding Palestinians as terrorists and crushing them by force."

Their statements infuriated King, who had lost friends in the attacks, as had many in his district, which lies 30 miles east of Manhattan.

"At this key moment for our country, the worst attack on us in history, these people who I thought were my friends were talking about Zionists and conspiracies," he said. "They were trying to look the other way while friends of mine were being murdered."

In the weeks that followed, Khan and others issued progressively stronger statements condemning al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden for the attacks.

To King, the fact that those words were ever uttered branded the mosque's leaders as radicals.

Since then, King has not set foot in the Islamic Center. Over the past decade, he has become one of the country's loudest voices on the dangers of Islamic extremism.

He has called for ethnic and religious-based profiling of air passengers and told Politico that there are "too many mosques in this country." He later tried to clarify that remark, saying he meant that "too many mosques in this country are not cooperating with law enforcement and too many have been taken over or are heavily influenced by extremists."

Of late, he has repeatedly alleged that 85 percent of U.S. mosques are run by radical extremists - an assertion he attributes to a 1999 statement by Sufi leader Hisham Kabbani. It was rejected at the time by every major Muslim organization in the country.

Few take issue with King's assertion that homegrown terrorism is rising greatly.

In the past two years, according to Justice Department statistics, nearly 50 U.S. citizens have been charged with major terrorism counts - all of them allegedly motivated by radical Islamic beliefs.

But many law enforcement leaders disagree with King's allegation that most Muslim leaders do not cooperate with authorities. In a speech last month, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said: "The cooperation of Muslim and Arab American communities has been absolutely essential in identifying, and preventing, terrorist threats. We must never lose sight of this."

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